A couple of years ago, LEGO fan Chris McVeigh released a lovely book for the holidays, titled, The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book: 15 Designs to Spread Holiday Cheer. (You can read my review on this book here: The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book Review) Chris is well known for his fun and festive LEGO holiday ornaments (and other small builds), and his website, ChrisMcVeigh.com is a great source for downloadable building instructions. For this holiday season, Chris released a second volume of the book, titled, The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book: 16 Designs to Spread Holiday Cheer! 🙂
As the title suggests, the second volume of The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book includes building instructions for sixteen more clever Christmas ornaments that can be built from standard LEGO parts that fans are likely to have in their collection. These small and uncomplicated ornaments are quick to build and a joy to display. In the introduction of the book, Chris writes, “It gives me great joy to bring you and your family a second collection of LEGO Christmas ornaments. I hope you have a wonderful time building these colorful creations and hanging them on your tree. Don’t hesitate to swap colors, switch parts, and put your own spin on things – mixing it up is all part of the fun!”
While it is easy to download instructions from Chris’s website, there is something special about having these instructions in book form. The book itself is hardcover and full color with 209 pages, published by No Starch Press (publisher of many high-quality LEGO books). The images are big and vibrant, and the instructions are easy to follow. The sixteen classic Christmas ornaments include a gingerbread house, gingerbread man, Santa, reindeer, a snowman, a wreath, a poinsettia, and traditional shapes like baubles and modern geometric swirls. They really are very nice and simple to build.
You can sit down with your children, spouse, friends, parents, or just by yourself, flip through the book to select the ornament(s) you would like to make, and begin building. Each design includes a parts-list, step-by-step building instructions, and a tastefully presented photo of the finished ornament. Also worth noting that each of the ornaments incorporate a LEGO string with end studs for easy hanging (if you don’t have this piece, or you don’t have enough of them, you can just use regular piece of string).
Both volumes of the LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book make excellent holiday presents, and they also provide engaging family activities. I highly recommend them. I also recommend checking Chris’ website, as he adds more ornaments as new LEGO shapes and colors get released. He just recently uploaded a nice collection of potted Christmas trees in different color combinations. Here are the links to the two volumes of the book:
What do you think? Have you been using Chris’ designs to build holiday ornaments? Are you planning to build any this year? Do you think you would get the book either for yourself or as a gift for someone else? Feel free to share in the comment section below! And if you have either or booth of the book already, you are welcome to share your own review! 😉
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
And as for ornaments, this year’s Friends calendar also has an ornaments theme.
Yes, it’s actually my favorite Calendar this year. The ornaments look nice!
I have the first book. It is very nice. Wasn’t aware that there was a second one, so thanks for posting about it. Will definitely pick it up.
You’re very welcome. Have fun building ornaments! 😀
We loved the first book! Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Is there any overlap between the books?
I don’t think there are any duplicates. Some of the geometric ornaments look similar as in the first book, but you can always change some of the shapes and colors for more variety. 🙂
I don’t understand where I get the legos to build these. Got the volume 2 ornaments book for my grandson and these don’t look like the typical blocks that a general beginner would have.
Dawn, you can get the pieces you need directly from LEGO’s website (Pick-A-Brick or Bricks-And-Pieces), or via the BrickLink marketplace (BrickLink has sellers from all over the world – it’s similar to eBay or Amazon, but only for LEGO). Each of the models comes with a list of all the pieces you need with element numbers, etc., so they are easy to find.
And of course, if you already have a decent size LEGO collection, you can also substitute many of the pieces with whatever you have available. Changing colors is especially fun! 😀
I also did not realize that it had unique Lego pieces that my Grandaughter would not already have. Just got my book today and disappointed about this.